Talk:Historicity of the Bible: Difference between revisions

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@Pbritti: I thought the general understanding is that we are not allowed to closely paraphrase our sources. Do you have a problem with that? Your requirement that “quite conservative” and “mainstream” should be found verbatim in the WP:RS is thus absurd, according to WP:PAGs. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:32, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For someone who is very vocal about their understanding of the rules, you seem to have neglected to review WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:BLP. Additionally, starting a noticeboard discussion immediately invites questions of forum-shopping. ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:54, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Careful about WP:ASPERSIONS. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:56, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is sufficient evidence in your degree of experience and failure to follow appropriate procedure to suggest there may be an issue. Regardless, follow BLP. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You take WP:OR and WP:BLP to absurd extent. Please address it rather than pontificating that I don’t obey rules I have learned many years ago. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:03, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There’s nothing in the source about “mainstream” but it does characterize Dever as one of the more conservative historians of ancient Israel. Does that help? Schazjmd (talk) 22:07, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And it also characterizes archaeologists more conservative than Dever as not being mainstream, i.e. doing apologetics instead of science. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:09, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The appropriate phrasing in this case wouldn’t be “quite conservative but mainstream”. You can leave it at “more conservative”. If you want to contrast him with archaeologists who are even more conservative, you use the content of the cited article to note the characteristics of these hyper-conservatives. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I’m not defending a particular wording, but the WP:RS makes the following points:

Then use the wording that is verifiable. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:25, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

WP:V according to what: verbatim words or meaning? tgeorgescu (talk) 22:27, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No set of words present mean “mainstream”. “Quite conservative” departs from the source (and isn’t standard in encyclopedic English). ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:02, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Tgeorgescu: I think it would be in place to note how Dever defines himself in the paper which you brought to this Wikipedia article:

Somewhat later, Finkelstein charged that I had gone to Gezer, Bible in one hand and trowel in the other, to “prove the Bible.” He ignored the fact that for nearly twenty years I had been challenging the older-style “biblical archaeology” in a series of publications.⁷ I am a very secular humanist, not a theist, and I have no interest whatsoever in “saving” either Solomon or the Bible.

Dever nowhere describes himself as a “conservative” in his paper on Solomon. On the contrary, he says he does not have any interest in defending the historicity of biblical narratives. Thus, I find very objectionable that he should be described as a “conservative”, especially without clarifying what we mean by “conservative” in this context. Potatín5 (talk) 22:49, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I’m not opposed to rephrasing those terms, but readers of archaeological papers know that Dever leans conservative. He is not a fundamentalist or inerrantist, but inside mainstream archaeology he occupies the maximalist flank. That’s of course relative, since there are full-blown maximalists who are way more conservative than him. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:07, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dever nowehere describes himself as a maximalist, in fact it his famous debate with Finkelstein he rejected the label of being a maximalist. Canadacatdejected123 (talk) 10:25, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Again, that’s relative, see https://reflections.yale.edu/article/between-babel-and-beatitude/old-testament-new-climate tgeorgescu (talk) 15:38, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Potatín5: I’m not going to edit war, but you have to consider that the IP might be right. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:35, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that the article was unfair and very biased without giving due reference to counter arguments. It also clearly makes wrongful assertions about events in the Bible. For example it says that the Sinai peninsula could not have supported 2-3 million without mentioning that it is God, not the Sinai peninsula that sustains the Israelites. It also raises the objection that events like the parting of the Red Sea defy rational explanation without mentioning that such events are clearly not natural and that the so called laws of nature are not real laws but descriptions of how nature works, therefore, it can’t defy rational explanations since nothing supposes that an outside agent couldn’t influence the physical world. Canadacatdejected123 (talk) 10:20, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We stick with mainstream history and mainstream archaeology. If you have a problem with these, we cannot help.

The whole population of Judah + Israel, i.e. Palestine, in the 10th century BCE has been estimated to 100 thousand people. If 3 million people conquered Canaan in the 15th/13th century BCE, they would have massively died of thirst and hunger, since God no longer provided them with manna.

Modern Jews from Israel speak a Canaanite language, and have Canaanite DNA. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:46, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]